Real life situations - Abdi's Story

It was wintertime and school was over for the day. 12 year old Abdi was at his locker in the hall getting ready to go home. Along came Mark, a new student with a cool kid Pete, one of Abdi’s friends. They walked quickly by and surprised Abdi by snickering loudly. They were making fun of Abdi’s brand new ski jacket which was bright yellow. Abdi really liked his jacket.

“Where’d you get that coat?” laughed Mark, the new kid. “Hey Abdi, does your mom know you borrowed it from her closet?” he continued while Pete laughed.

"Yeah right, har, har” Abdi tried to laugh with them. Closing the locker door and attempting to catch up to the boys, Abdi yelled “Hey where you guys going?”

“Nowhere with YOU and THAT coat” hollered Pete over his shoulder as they took off laughing.

Strange, Abdi thought to himself as he walked home alone, I thought Pete was my friend.

At lunch time the next day, Abdi saw Mark sitting alone. He decided to go sit with him. Maybe he'd get some answers about why Mark had picked on him yesterday. But as he approached Mark's table, Abdi suddenly noticed that Mark was looking really sad.

"Hi Mark" said Abdi. "What's the matter?"

“Oh, That guy Pete" said Mark "pushed me right into a snowbank on the way home from school last night – and today, he won’t talk to me or even look at me .”

“Oh” said Abdi, knowing just what he felt like. Abdi decided to ask him about the day before. “Hey Mark,” he asked “Why did you pick on me and say those things about me yesterday?”

Mark looked at the ground. “Oh that, well, Pete told me to. He said I could hang out with him as long as I did what he wanted. I guess I thought I could stay his friend if I did it. Boy was that a mistake. I’m sorry. Actually I really like your jacket!”

“Well”, said Abdi, “thanks for saying that. But I know what you mean about Pete. I used to pick on other kids too when I hung around with him – I figured it would make him like me more – I actually thought I was his friend until he did it to me finally. That really sucks.”

“Yeah” Mark said.

It got quiet for awhile between them and then suddenly Abdi jumped up.

“Ummm I gotta go Mark” said Abdi, “You want to get together later?”

“Yeah, sure, but where are you going?” asked Mark, interested.

“There's a person whose feelings I hurt last week. I have to go find them and say I'm sorry”

“Okay” said Mark knowingly, with a smile “After that, do you want to play play snow soccer?”

“Snow soccer?” laughed Abdi

“Yeah, I’ll teach it to you. See you later Abdi!” called Mark.

“Okay, see you soon," said Abdi, as he pulled on his bright yellow jacket and dashed away.”

In the Kid-Safe interview with Coloroso she suggested that when you know you have behaved badly, you must “own it, fix it and then learn from it”, giving life to learning. She further suggesed that educators can assist kids in becoming peaceful by using this kind of discipline, rather than punishment. She said using logical consequences that are appropriate to the severity of what happened is the key AND that it can be achieved without unneccesary mediation between the bully and the target, something Coloroso discouraged. (expansion of this idea can be found in the Kid-Safe Coloroso interview and in her book “The Bully, the Bullied and the Bystander”).